Chemotaxis, or the oriented movement of a cell in response to a chemical agent, is a complex and highly integrated process. The movement can be positive (toward) or negative (away) from a chemical gradient. Movement toward an agent or stimulus is termed positive chemotaxis (i.e., the agent or stimulus is chemoattractive for the cell), while movement away from an agent or stimulus is termed negative chemotaxis (i.e., the agent or stimulus is chemorepulsive for the cell). It is believed that for both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, cells undergoing chemotaxis sense a change in agent concentration and, thereby, move in response to the concentration gradient. Chemoattraction (CA) and chemorepulsion (CR) are therefore properties of the agent or stimulus, while chemotaxis is a property of cells.
Within the immune system, chemotaxis is often driven by a class of biological agents, known as chemokines (or chemotactic cytokines). Once triggered, chemotaxis plays an important role in various physiologic and cellular processes including tissue organization, organogenesis homeostasis, embryonic morphogenesis tissue repair and regeneration and disease progression in cancer, mental retardation, atherosclerosis, and arthritis. Compounds that affect chemotaxis (either induce positive or negative chemotaxis) would therefore be useful in modulating these and other biologic processes. Compounds that induce negative chemotaxis have in fact been described as useful in treating inflammation, in inhibiting tumor metastasis and in contraception.
It would therefore be advantageous to identify additional compounds that induce negative chemotaxis.